Twitter, Apple criticised over porn videos

Twitter's new video-sharing service has quickly become a haven for porn, with adult content briefly appearing in an "Editor's Picks" section of the app.

Twitter apologised for the mistake, blaming "human error" and quickly removed the video. The company said those types of videos violate the app's guidelines and are removed, and users who post porn can also be banned from using the app.

"Videos that have been reported as inappropriate have a warning message that a viewer must click through before viewing the video," said a Twitter spokeswoman.

The social network last week launched Vine, a service that lets people share video snippets from iPhones and iPod touch devices. Perpetually looping video clips up to six seconds each can be shared using Vine or easily embedded in tweets.

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A free Vine application became available worldwide at Apple's App Store on Thursday. Reports soon surfaced of pornographic videos being found at Vine by people searching for such content.

Eyes were on Apple, which has a history of booting apps that serve up adult content from the App Store.

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Despite the videos, the app has been allowed to remain in the App Store. Critics are accusing Apple of having a double standard, since it has banned other apps with adult content.

Apple allows apps from such big-name social platforms as Twitter, Vine, Tumblr and Pinterest to remain in its App Store even though they contain adult content. Yet it has knocked off other lesser-known sites from its store because of "pornographic images and material". Most recently, an app called 500px suffered that fate.

Critics say Apple should have a clearer policy that is enforced uniformly. Apple could not be reached for comment.

Twitter bought Vine, a start-up based in New York, in October, prompting talk the messaging service intended to do for smartphone video what Instagram did for photos.

Previously, Instagram pictures shared in messages tweeted from smartphones could be viewed unaltered at Twitter.

Facebook promptly blocked Vine users from being able to find friends at the world's leading social network, "clarifying" its platform policy in response to inquiries about the move.

Platform operations director Justin Osofsky said in a blog post that apps aren't allowed to use the friend-finding feature if they "replicate our functionality or bootstrap their growth in a way that creates little value for people on Facebook".

Osofsky did not directly refer to Vine or how the rule was applied to the service.